I'd slam the door into the goon, roly-poly invincibly past the second guy's attack, and slash him dead from behind. I'd burst into a room, using the slam of the door to kill one enemy, then slash at another melee attacker just ahead. Instead, I was constantly making progress as I worked out the order with which to take on enemies. This means I died a lot, but the instant restarts and frequent checkpoints meant I was never frustrated.
Everyone dies in a single hit, both you and the enemies. This is a game about execution - pun intended.Īlongside your sword, you have the ability to slow time, to wall-jump, and to do forward rolls during which you're invincible. If the individual elements lack novelty, it hardly matters.
The Hotline Miami comparisons don't stop with this violent repetition though: there's also an excellent synthwave soundtrack, a fetish for '80s VHS aesthetic, and that aforementioned story, which involves the criminal underworld, unclear motives, an unreliable narrator, and which is told mainly via between mission visits to your apartment. Each mission involves the Dragon arriving at a location and try-die-repeating your way through enemies until you reach your eventual target. Katana Zero casts you as the Dragon, a bathrobe-wearing assassin carrying, yeah, a katana. You're also able to interrupt every line said to you, whether to bypass the story or to roleplay as a rude jerk, and doing so causes the text of the person speaking to scatter like smashed glass.Īll of this is important, because it turns out story is as much the appeal of this 2D platformer as its propulsive, Hotlime Miami-like ultraviolence. When in conversation, there's a timer during every player choice, and new dialogue options might open up at different points during that countdown.
Words and phrases can be highlighted in different colours, and can further suggest intonation by animating wavily or by each letter shaking as if terrified. During dialogue, words can imply the pace of speech by appearing letter-by-letter or thumping on screen one word at a time. For more on the game, check out the recent news that the title is Devolver Digital’s second fastest-selling Nintendo Switch game.Katana Zero has the juiciest text boxes I've ever seen.
Hopefully this cleared up how to get the secret ending in Katana Zero. Most have presumed that the elevator will lead to an eventual DLC area and/or boss fight, but no one can say for certain at this time.Īs such, the two endings covered above should be taken as the only available endings at this time. The doors can be unlocked with keys taken from targets after their deaths, but the elevator remains inaccessible. This has been exacerbated by the discovery of the game’s secret lab, which contains several locked doors and an elevator. Though some players have speculated that there might be another ending available in the game, none have been found as of this time. This leaves the “Bad End” as a secret ending of sorts, offering an alternative end to the course of the game’s events. While both are viable endings to the game, the latter option is touted as the more canon of the two. Meanwhile, choosing to live results in you progressing further into the story toward the “True Ending.” Or at least, it has an ending you might not arrive at immediately if you don’t make the right choices.Īt a certain point in the game, you”ll be given a choice by two masked enemies to let them kill you or to fight them and continue to live.Ĭhoosing to let them kill you leads to a “Bad End” of sorts, with the game ending prematurely after you’re executed. While we won’t get heavy with plot, some spoilers are ahead.įirst and foremost, it’s worth saying that yes, Katana Zero does have a secret ending. If you’re like many Katana Zero players, you’re probably trying to figure out how to get the secret ending. How to Get the Secret Ending in Katana Zero